When they hang onto the ball, the Evanston girls lacrosse squad can really be a dangerous team.
One night after an uncharacteristically poor performance against Maine South, the Wildkits bounced back and scored an 11-9 victory over Warren at Lazier Field.
Seven different players scored goals as ETHS improved to 7-5 on the season. The Kits overcame a slow start — spotting the Blue Devils a 3-0 lead — to force a 5-5 halftime tie, then struck for three goals in the first four and one-half minutes in the second half to take control.
Senior Joan Gibbons was the catalyst on offense during that spurt, notching both of her goals and assisting Nina Doeff on another. Sophomore Dillon Woodward led the winners with three goals, followed by Gibbons, Rachel Kornbluh (2) and Ariel Hasak-Lowy, Kate Pingry, Addie del Angel and Doeff with one apiece.
Mary Loftus added an assist for a Wildkit team that has shared the wealth on offense to the point where no real “go-to” player has emerged yet.
And that’s just the way head coach Sarah McKenna likes it.
“I’ve got an entire field of go-to players, I think,” McKenna said. “Whoever’s on is on, and the girls all look to get the ball to whoever’s on. And it’s hard for other teams to defend us when they can’t stop just one player.
“Joan was the one who was on tonight, even though she hasn’t scored a ton of goals for us this year. She does lead us in assists, and I think she’s still mad from yesterday (12-4 loss to Maine South). We had 30 unforced turnovers in that game and I’d never seen that team I saw yesterday. I hope I never see them again, either. Tonight the difference was like night and day, even though it took us awhile to get going in that first half.
“I thought we defended really well tonight, too. All of our attackers have been working really hard on getting the ball back whenever we turned it over. We worked hard on that across the board and tonight we did a much better job.”
Turnovers were a problem early for the host team, but the Kits dug out of a 3-0 hole and forged a 3-3 tie on goals by Hasak-Lowy, Pingry and Woodward with 12 minutes, 23 seconds remaining in the first half.
Gibbons’ aggressive play produced three goals early in the second half as the senior standout dashed three-quarters of the length of the field to net two of those goals herself. Warren (3-6) never got closer than two goals after that.
Source: ETHS Sports Information